A North East MEP is the latest UKIP politician to publicly criticise the party, saying it “needs to change - and fast” and stop its members “banging on” about immigration.

As calls intensify for leader Nigel Farage to stand down, Jonathan Arnott has launched an angry broadside at the party, venting his frustration at candidates for peddling a “toxic message” and sounding like “a broken record”.

In the wake of a disappointing election result which returned just one MP, the MEP said the party had descended into “dog-whistle politics” but claimed many of its wounds were “self-inflicted”.

UKIP saw its highest share of the vote in the North East (17% compared with a national average of 12.6%) and grassroots supporters favour deputy leader Paul Nuttall to take the reigns as someone who sees the potential of the North East.

Mr Arnott stopped short of calling for Mr Farage’s resignation but said UKIP must turn its back on anti-immigration rhetoric as it looks ahead to campaigning for an ‘out’ vote in the forthcoming EU referendum.

He said: “We’re not here to blame immigrants. We welcome them with open arms – not at the rate of a net 300,000 a year, but at a sustainable rate.

“But from the time of the billboards focused on Romania and Bulgaria in our European election campaign in 2014, the message above has seemingly replaced by dog-whistle politics. The message we portray is often toxic, but our candidates just aren’t like that at all.”

He added: “We can’t lay 100% of the blame at the door of the media: our own rhetoric has fanned the flames, too.”

It follows another day of damaging headlines for UKIP after Stuart Wheeler, treasurer and high-profile donor, called for Mr Farage to face an open leadership contest.

Nigel Farage casts his vote

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After failing to win in South Thanet, Mr Farage offered his resignation but the national executive committee refused to accept. Leadership races are already underway for Labour and the Lib Dems following their poor election showing.

Infighting has since has broken out amongst the UKIP ranks with economic spokesman and campaign chief Patrick O’Flynn going public to brand Mr Farage a “snarling, thin-skinned and aggressive man”.

Mr Arnott, who joined the party in 2001, said: “We were the only party which could claim that its sums add up. And being perceived (not totally fairly) as a ‘right-wing’ party, we had our manifesto costed by a left-of-centre think tank.

Mr Arnott lashed out at the party’s candidate selection which allowed people with “abhorrent” views to represent the party. He singled out Hampstead and Kilburn’s Magnus Neilson, who was caught on camera claiming the UK is “at war with Islam”.

Mr Arnott said: “But when (as in Hampstead &amp; Kilburn) we select a Parliamentary candidate whose abhorrent views were aired and publicised already at last year’s council elections, the resultant bad publicity is entirely our own fault.

“Freedom of speech is not an excuse: I might (a la Voltaire) defend the right of freedom of speech to the death, yet vehemently oppose the association of those distasteful views with UKIP.

“The candidate concerned finished in 5th place, losing his deposit. I can’t say I’m surprised - and I’ll be blunt: if I lived in that constituency, I couldn’t have voted UKIP either.”